


gnawing at the corners of your mind

by zach_stone



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mind Control, Pre-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), playing fast and loose with scientific believability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 03:32:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18241520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zach_stone/pseuds/zach_stone
Summary: This is how it starts.Newt is sitting in the lab, slouched in his desk chair, three days post-saving-the-world, and he is staring at the greenish glow of a tank full of kaiju brain. He has been staring at it for going on fifteen minutes now, and three thoughts enter his mind.Newt thinks: It’s too weak and damaged to function for another Drift.Newt thinks: Their world was destroyed by the nuclear Jaeger-bomb (ha) we dropped in there, so there’s nothing to hear on the other side anyway.Something in Newt whispers: I need to Drift with that brain again so badly or I will die.--Or, Newt's descent.





	gnawing at the corners of your mind

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a few months ago and seeing as the one year anniversary of uprising was a couple days ago, i decided i'd finally post it! i'm not normally one for angst without a happy ending, but... this was kind of cathartic to write? rest assured this fic exists in a universe where newt is rescued, as do all my uprising-compliant fics. 
> 
> don't read too much into the plausibility of how the kaiju brain shit works here... idk a thing about science i'm just here for a laff 
> 
> title from "muddy waters" by LP

This is how it starts.

Newt is sitting in the lab, slouched in his desk chair, three days post-saving-the-world, and he is staring at the greenish glow of a tank full of kaiju brain. He has been staring at it for going on fifteen minutes now, and three thoughts enter his mind.

Newt thinks: _It’s too weak and damaged to function for another Drift._

Newt thinks: _Their world was destroyed by the nuclear Jaeger-bomb (ha) we dropped in there, so there’s nothing to hear on the other side anyway._

Something in Newt whispers: _I need to Drift with that brain again so badly or I will die._

Hermann went to bed an hour ago, pausing long enough to press a lingering kiss into Newt’s hair and remind him not to stay up too late, they can _rest_ now, after all. There is no one in the lab, therefore, to witness Newt slowly rise from his chair and drag the makeshift Pons system out of the corner, meticulously setting it up and sitting back down in his chair, headset in place, the button in his hand.

This time, he does not think or hesitate. His palm slams down on the button, and Newt feels the tug like his brain is imploding, and then everything goes bright, electric blue.

When the Drift connection falters and cuts out, Newt is not left seizing on the floor like before. A small trickle of blood comes out of his nose, but he is conscious. It didn’t hurt this time, not really. It almost felt — _good_ , the way a Drift is supposed to feel when it’s between two pilots _._ As if whoever is on the other side knew what Newt was doing and knew what happened last time, and held back a little to make the mental load more bearable. Now, that’s a thought. Maybe the world on the other side of the Breach isn’t as obliterated as Newt thought.

He isn’t sure what to do with this information. It could be nothing, just a remnant of dead memory lingering in the brain tissue — and the world is still celebrating a victory, surely it would be cruel to bring this up without proof that there’s cause for alarm? Newt swipes at the blood that’s now running onto his upper lip, looking at the smear of it on the back of his slightly shaky hand. He swallows roughly, eyes drifting up to look at the tank.

The brain floats, serenely. It does not move.

Newt puts the Pons away, washes his hands and face to hide any evidence of blood, and slips out of the lab.

 

Newt drifts with the kaiju brain two more times that week. The second time, the unclear images and incomprehensible emotions pause and form into a question, wrapping like a tendril around Newt’s mind.

_What would you like to know?_

And Newt feels a heady rush that sends shivers down his spine, because for all his research and expertise there’s only so much he can learn about a kaiju when it’s dead. There’s next to nothing he can learn about their world, now that the Breach is closed. He can hear his own heartbeat racing in his ears and he thinks, _Everything._

He tells no one the truth about what he’s come to think of as his personal research project. He manages to finagle a reason to keep the brain around in the lab, something about examining the effects of his Drift with it; not exactly a lie, after all. As far as he can tell, there is no fear of the Breach being reopened from the other side, even though the beings there — the Precursors — remain alive enough to communicate with Newt. There is no real _need_ for him to be communicating with the Precursors, and anyone with any authority would likely see the whole thing as a risk, a threat to the tenuous safety of humankind. Even Hermann would disapprove, though more likely out of concern for Newt’s safety than anything else.

So he keeps it to himself. He and Hermann stay on staff at the PPDC, but they move out of the Shatterdome and into a tiny apartment, where they finally have a bed that’s built for two and Hermann burns breakfast and argues with Newt about the decor and kisses every inch of Newt’s body, and Newt is happy. For the first time in so long, Newt is blissfully, foolishly happy.

He Drifts with the brain whenever he has the chance, and now he doesn’t even get a nosebleed after. He’s scrawling notes that read back like someone half-asleep or high, but the rush he gets every time he puts on the headset is worth it all. He’s making history, he’s connecting with the other side in a way they never could before, never _dared_ to before. _We could learn so much from you,_ he thinks.

 _And you are,_ the Precursors tell him. _You are special._

Newt believes them.

 

Hermann shakes awake with nightmares at least twice a week, sometimes more. It’s been months, and still he will come to with a gasp or a strangled shout, and then he will roll away from Newt as if ashamed of himself. Newt turns to wrap his arms around Hermann then, holding him close and kissing the back of his neck, and Hermann sobs quietly, just once, and shifts in Newt’s arms so they face each other.

“Do you get them too?” he whispers one night, tracing his fingers along Newt’s face in the dark. Newt closes his eyes at the touch.

He dreams of the Drift almost every night now, but it’s in fragments, nothing clear, nothing terrifying. Nothing that wakes him so violently the way Hermann’s dreams seem to. He kisses Hermann’s fingertips. “Sometimes,” he lies. “It’s just temporary, Hermann. It’ll pass.”

“Yes,” Hermann agrees, exhaustion lacing his voice, and he presses his face into the crook of Newt’s neck. “We’ll be alright, you and I.”

 

The first time Newt gets an inkling that some of his thoughts may not be his own, he has been Drifting with the kaiju brain once a week for six months and he is reading an email from Shao Industries, offering him a position and a salary with more zeros than he’s ever seen in his life. He thinks, _hey, I’ve always wanted to go to the private sector._ That’s where the money is. And what’s the point of doing this shit if there’s not good money involved? He imagines buying a big house with Hermann, one with a proper yard. They could garden. They could get a dog. Hell, with figures like this he could probably buy Hermann a diamond-encrusted jacuzzi. Not that Hermann wants a diamond-encrusted jacuzzi. But it’s the principle of the thing.

He brings it up casually at dinner that night. “Got an email from Shao Industries today,” he says, shoving a forkful of pasta into his mouth. “Offering me a job.”

Hermann makes a derisive sound. “I swear they’re trying to snatch up every one of us they can get their power-hungry hands on. It’s bad enough the PPDC seems intent on using jaegers as a police force — to _hear_ what Shao intends to do, have you read what they’ve been saying about the possibility of drones?” He glares at his dinner plate like it’s Liwen Shao herself. “Irresponsible, if you ask me. Downright dangerous.”

Newt hums nervously. “Sure, I guess. But I mean, do you really wanna stay here forever? Our salaries are chump change compared to what Shao’s offering. I — we could be making a lot of money, Hermann.”

Hermann frowns at him then, brows knitting together. “Since when have you ever cared so much about the money?”

And Newt feels something like doubt pool in his stomach. Hasn’t he always wanted this? He suddenly remembers attending countless protests in college, raging against whoever he deemed to be The Man at the time, spitting the word “fascist” whenever one of the PPDC higher-ups got a little too militant for his liking. He sets his fork down. He’d been so sure when he got that email. It’s like he forgot an entire facet of his life.

“Newton?” Hermann says, concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Newt says distantly. “Dinner’s not really agreeing with me, I think I’m gonna… gonna lay down for a bit.”

He cannot tell Hermann about what he’s been doing. It would only upset him. Newt decides he’ll just stop Drifting with the brain. If he’s removed from the source, whatever influence it’s starting to have on him will fade to nothing. He’s _fine_ , he tells himself, staring at the bedroom ceiling and listening to Hermann do the dishes in the kitchen down the hall. He’s Newt Geiszler, for crying out loud. He helped save the world — he can handle this.

 

He’s cut himself off from Drifting completely cold turkey, and one month later he wakes with a gasp, shooting upright and feeling like he’s just run a marathon, heart thudding in his chest and blood rushing in his ears. Hermann is awake in an instant, his hand on the small of Newt’s back.

“What’s wrong, darling?” he whispers, sitting up and shifting to press a kiss between Newt’s shoulder blades, hand drifting to rub soothingly against his side. “Was it a nightmare?”

Newt tries to clear his mind of the images from his dream, but they’re burned into the insides of his eyelids — bright, electric blue. He leans into Hermann’s touch, feeling arms wrap around him in the dark.

It’s not the dream that’s scaring him. It’s his reaction to it, the way his gut churns with longing and he wants to Drift again, wants to fall into that strange blue space of the Anteverse, so badly that his whole body shakes. He _needs_ it — but whose need is it, anyway?

Is there really a difference anymore?

 

A day comes where he loses three hours of time and comes back to himself in the lab, Pons headset in place, fingers hovering over the button to initiate the Drift. He stares at the tank, the kaiju brain within it, as if seeing it for the first time. It’s just a preserved, dead piece of alien meat, but he swears he can feel it staring at him. He wants to vomit. He means to take the headset off, to smash the tank and let the brain rot, but instead his hand slams down on the button.

The rush is instantaneous, every nerve in his body singing. He’s swallowed up in the sensation of the hivemind, impossibly vast, his limbs stretching like taffy, and he’s special, he’s _special_ but only when he’s here.

 _You will never be happy without us,_ the Precursors tell him. _What do you have without us to give you purpose? Your world will forget about you. They have already started to forget._

It’s not entirely untrue. The jaegers have always been the face of the PPDC, the marketable heroes. It’s been less than a year and already those behind the scenes are fading from the public eye. The academic sphere loves Newt, vies for him to give lectures or take on a research position. They’ll always love him.

_But that will never be enough for you. You don’t want their love. You want the world. You’ve always wanted the world._

Has he?

_We’re in your head. We know what you want. And you will never get it without us. You are too small. Too weak._

When the connection breaks, Newt is on the floor with a nosebleed. He removes the Pons headset and presses his face into his knees.

 

He frequently loses hours now, perhaps days. Conversations he doesn’t remember having are referenced, and he opens his mouth to explain but someone else’s words fall from his lips. Panic is constant like teeth at his throat, and the only relief is in the Drift.

 

He looks at himself in the mirror and feels _wrong_ , too small in his own skin. He half expects new sets of eyes to open, bioluminescent with slit pupils. He thinks if he sliced himself open, he’d bleed neon. He presses a hand to his chest and pushes, hard, against his sternum. His reflection does the same, but the image is fractured, delayed by a half of a half-second. The world tilts. Newt feels impossibly small, yearning to stretch until he breaks apart.

Of course, he thinks, as he forces his gaze away from the mirror, looking over his shoulder at the tank in the corner of his bedroom, this is nothing new.

He has always wanted to be larger than life.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @hermanngottiieb where i'm usually cheerier than this :P 
> 
> comments always appreciated and i'm sorry if i made u sad xoxo


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